Just Because
by Iced Blood
Summary: Oneshot: Camping with the Kaibas. What more could you possibly need to know?


_**I was bored and unable to think of anything to write last night, so I asked a friend of mine to give me a scenario. Just a random little scene to cure writer's block.**_

_**This is what happened.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

* * *

"So we're clear, you _do _know that we could do this very thing at home, right? The couch is perfectly suitable for long stretches of time that involve the total absence of activity."

The boy's eyes rolled as he looked back at his brother with an amused, almost condescending expression. "That's not why we're here, Niisama. We can sit on the couch _any _time."

"Yes, and be twice as productive, if only because there wouldn't be a two-hour drive involved to reach the front parlor."

"But the front parlor isn't outside!"

"Is that the problem? I can have it moved, you know."

Mokuba groaned disgustedly and shook his head. "You just don't get it, Niisama."

Seto raised an eyebrow. "No. And I've been saying that since the beginning of this 'vacation,' as you seem to enjoy calling it. So enlighten me, wise and powerful elder. Tell me, that I may understand your eternal wisdom."

"You need to get out more! Get fresh air! Go outside just 'cuz you can!"

"Yugi tried that same argument on me last week. I'm still not buying it. There aren't—" here Seto irritably smacked at his neck, "—pests in my office that want to eat me."

"Are you sure?"

Seto blinked. "Well...that girl who came in to clean the carpets kept eyeing me rather strangely...so was her _boyfriend, _now that I think about it."

Mokuba scrunched up his nose. "Ew! That's gross!"

"Why do you think I decided not to hire them again?" Seto replied. "People are disgusting things, Mokuba. I keep telling you to stop associating with them."

"You do know that _you're _a person, too, right?"

"I've killed for lesser insults."

"You always get mad when Téa says you aren't human."

"I didn't say I wasn't human," Seto said. "I said I wasn't a _person._ There's a difference. _People _are useless. _Humans _are nearly extinct."

Mokuba rolled his eyes again. "Uh-huh. Sure, Niisama."

Seto was about to say something else when Mokuba's eyes suddenly went wide.

His line had pulled taut, tugging the end of the pole toward the water like a malformed metronome.

"I got one!" he cried excitedly, in a voice Seto usually associated with Christmas and birthday parties. "Niisama, I got one!"

It quickly became apparent to Seto that, while it had been his brother's idea to go out fishing for a weekend, Mokuba's only knowledge of the activity had come from Wikipedia.

After he nearly fell out of the boat three times (stopped only by Seto's hand finally clutching the hem of his shirt and holding him steady), Mokuba finally managed – through more luck and stubbornness than any semblance of strategy – to get a grip on the writhing, quaking, wiggling creature at the end of his line.

Mokuba was giggling madly, eyes sparkling with unfiltered euphoria as he marveled at his catch. "Look, Niisama!" he cried. "I did it!"

"Yes, I see that," Seto said, trying to retain his bored tone of voice, but cracking a smile despite himself. "You did it. And in the process you managed to turn the boat into a pool. Now let's get this scrap heap back to shore, and I'll make up a fire."

"Huh?" Mokuba asked, happiness shifting into confusion. "Fire? How come we need a fire? It's still light out."

Seto blinked. "Did you have some _other _plan as to cooking the fish? Or did you think they came out of the water battered with a side of fries?"

Now the confusion gave way to utter dismay. "What?!"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry to break the news to you, kiddo, but that's done in a _kitchen," _Seto explained. "You know...that place behind the counter and the giant menu, where all those _other _people are."

Clearly, Mokuba was not amused. "We're not gonna _eat _him!"

"Him? You don't know that thing's gender any more than you know its religion, Mokuba. And besides, what _did _you think we were going to do with it? You're not taking it home."

"No!"

Mokuba scoffed and removed the wriggling creature from the hook, throwing it back into the water. "We're just here to catch 'em, Niisama. That's the fun part."

Seto's eyes remained fixed on the spot where the pristine surface of the water was still distorted by the splash made by the fish as it flopped back into the lake.

"...You..._have_...to be kidding me..." he muttered.

Mokuba laughed as if _Seto _had been the illogical one. "You thought we were gonna _eat _them?"

Seto stared at his brother with a wide-eyed, almost frightened expression. "Mokuba...you seriously had me sit out here for the past three hours, watching a _stick _and waiting for a creature too stupid to keep a hook out of its mouth, just for the _sake of it? _Are you..._this _is entertaining to you?!"

"Well, sure. It's fun. It's nice out here."

"I...you...we've...oh, I don't _think _so!"

"...Huh?"

Seto stood up, somehow managing to make it look easy. Looking up at the man now towering over him, Mokuba suddenly felt very, very small, covered as he was by his brother's shadow.

The nearly manic look in Seto's eyes didn't help the situation any.

"...Niisama?"

"You caught that thing," Seto said, barely above a whisper, "and I'll be _damned _if you aren't going to eat it. I did _not _come here for _sport. _If you want dinner tonight, you'd better go in there and find it."

"But...but...what...?"

Seto leaned down and gripped his brother by the strap of his bright orange lifejacket. "No argument accepted, Mister. You want food? Go hunt for it!"

Anything Mokuba had planned to say in protest came out as a high-pitched squeak as he was tossed out of the boat.

Thrashing, sputtering, gasping in breath at the suddenness of the lake's unrelenting chill, Mokuba worked through his surprise enough to glare at his laughing sibling.

"H-Hey! That wasn't f-f-funny!" he protested, teeth chattering.

Seto just continued laughing. "The look on your face almost made this debacle worth the time!"

Ignoring Mokuba's continued glower, he reached down and clutched the stick he had been sharpening since they'd first set out on the water.

Then, without warning, Seto leaped out into the lake as if he were a fish himself, and when his head broke the surface again, he looked like the water didn't affect him at all.

"Technology has made you weak, youngling," Seto said in a sagely tone. Mokuba narrowed his eyes, and Seto shrugged it off.

The irony of that statement didn't need to be voiced.

"Poles and hooks are for people too lazy and squeamish to do the real work. Pay attention, kid. _This _is fishing."

And with that, Seto set out to stalk his prey.

"But...but Niisama!" Mokuba called out. "I don't even _like _fish!"

"Should have thought of that before you decided to go fishing!"

Mokuba pouted, but his brother was no longer paying attention.

* * *

"Told you, kiddo," Seto said, laying on his back and staring up at the night sky. "You should just learn to accept that everything I say is right."

Mokuba grunted as he bit off a chunk of his dinner. "Oh, c'mon, Niisama. How was I s'posed to know you could cook stuff with mud and leaves?"

"Easy. I told you I could."

"Still weird."

"Mm. Is that why you've eaten five helpings?"

"...Six."

Seto chuckled. "I see."

"Where'd you learn this stuff?" Mokuba asked. "Mako Tsunami?"

Seto frowned. "Who?"

"That duelist. The water guy. With the weird hair."

"Weird hair, huh? You're one to talk."

"Hey! I like my hair!"

"Uh-huh...water...water...oh. Kajiki."

"...Who?"

"His name is Kajiki. Mako Tsunami is some stupid stage name...and no. I didn't learn from him. I've never even _met _the man."

"You know, Yugi says you know all kinds of stuff 'cuz your ancestor was a scholar or something. Or a...priest or something."

Seto snickered. "Yes. And his source of information is a second personality. Highly dependable research."

"Just sayin'. I mean, you _do _know a lot, Niisama."

"People don't call me a genius because it's fun. Look, you can listen to Yugi's stories all you want, but don't expect me to believe any of it. The best he's come up with to back up his claims _still _depends on my believing that this 'Yami' is a separate, sentient, _tangible _being, and I've yet to find reason to."

"I've talked to him, you know."

"I'll bet you have. I haven't missed those times when his voice deepens seemingly at a whim. When he becomes confident, quick-thinking, and actually _worth _challenging. However, I still have no reason to label that as anything but a surprisingly beneficial mental disorder."

"Yeah, but he's _taller, _too. How could a mental disease do _that?"_

"This coming from the boy who – not three years ago – told me about a gremlin with designs to take over the mind of the president lived in my coat."

"Oh, come on! You've seen it, too!"

"My coat remains uninhabited."

"Not _that! _Yugi!"

"Just because he stands up straighter doesn't make him taller."

"Yeah, _that's_ it."

"It makes as much sense as anything else I've heard about the Magical Growing Yugi. He's not a circus act, as much as he tries to look like one."

Mokuba sighed as he set the stick that had held his meal into the fire and curled up in his sleeping bag beside his brother.

"What if it's true, though, Niisama?"

"It's not."

"But what _if?"_

"...Then I used to be a priest. Yugi was a pharaoh, that Bakura kid was a thief, and my father was Pegasus."

"...Uh?"

"He's also told me that the Blue-Eyes used to be a woman with blue hair. Apparently we were cousins, as well. Friends, he says, which is why he doesn't understand why I don't open up more."

Seto rolled his eyes and folded his hands behind his head.

"You associate with Yugi and his band of idiots, Mokuba. Tell them I'm not interested. None of them ever listen to _me, _so maybe if _you _say it, it'll register."

"Nope. Sorry, Niisama. I've tried."

Seto sighed. "Of course. Well, there's only one course of action, then. They're obviously too stupid to live. Darwinism is taking too long. We'll get some power tools or something and weed out the weak ourselves."

"Don't you have a gun?"

"Several. But guns are too predictable. They'll expect it. If I go to Yugi's house with a drill, he might think I'm just there to fix the staircase. Element of surprise."

"You're so wise, Niisama," Mokuba muttered.

"Yes. Yes, I am."

* * *

It would have come to no surprise for just about anyone to find that Seto Kaiba was an insomniac. Five hours if he forced himself...or if Mokuba forced him.

And so, during a weekend which he was supposed to have been using to unwind, to relax and allow himself to do absolutely nothing, he found himself restless, as usual.

And so he sat, tending to a nearly dead fire, every once in a while glancing back at his brother, nestled peacefully into a sleeping bag adorned by his favorite comic book character (which changed so often that Seto had long since stopped keeping track).

_You just don't get it, Niisama. This is fun. It's nice out here. You need to get out more. Go outside just 'cuz you can._

Letting out a deep breath, Seto thought about this. Thought about his actions the past couple days, about how despite Mokuba's obvious euphoria, Seto had resisted the idea of a camping trip all the way until they were in the car and on the road.

Because it was pointless.

Because it was useless.

Because there were any number of other things to be done.

_You just don't get it, Niisama._

He chuckled. No...he didn't.

He stood up, turned around, and watched Mokuba sleep for a moment.

"You're so wise, Niisama..." he muttered with another chuckle.

Mokuba mumbled a bit in his sleep and turned over, flopping onto his stomach with a slight grunt.

"Yes..." Seto said as he lay down on the ground. "Yes...I am..."

He resolved to himself then, that whatever Mokuba decided he wanted to do in the morning, he would try it with an open mind.

Just because he could.

* * *

_**...And there you have it. The stylings of my mind when I can't come up with anything myself.**_

_**Is there a specific point to this? No. Not really. The second and third scenes have next to nothing to do with the first. I simply tried to find a way to wrap it up. I originally began something entirely different, but upon later consideration found that it didn't work at all, and so scrapped it in favor of this.**_

_**Here you have an example of my attempts at thwarting writer's block. I hope you found it at least marginally entertaining.**_


End file.
